


i'm in the same place that i used to be (but i'm trying harder not to be)

by CoffeeAndArrows



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, ft. sara and ava actually talking about their feelings, post 4x10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 14:21:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18412415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeAndArrows/pseuds/CoffeeAndArrows
Summary: “You know I’ve done shit, Aves,” she eventually managed, avoiding Ava’s eyes. “I’m not sure my file has details, but... I’ve been the person on the other side of this, the one who stopped at nothing until I got the information I needed. I know the league and the bureau aren’t at all similar, but I’ve been the one following orders, the one torturing someone for crimes they didn’t commit without stopping to ask questions. I’ve done things that keep me awake at night, because I had to to survive. Because I didn’t have a choice. But now Idoand I have the ability to stop this and ...I’m not just going to stand by and let these creatures get hurt. I can’t. Not when we were the ones who put them in these cells in the first place.”She swallowed, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor until a thumb gently traced across the back of her hand and prompted her to look up, immediately meeting Ava’s eyes. “You never told me that.”Or, Sara and Ava talk after 4x10





	i'm in the same place that i used to be (but i'm trying harder not to be)

**Author's Note:**

> I have an exam in 2 days so I wrote this instead, enjoy
> 
> title from alibis by marianas trench which is a very sara song, go listen to it

She’d wanted Ava to come to her. Ava had been the one who pushed her away, ignoring her calls and avoiding her and taking time off work so they didn’t have to see each other. It was strange how at some point, her evenings had gone from being the part of the day she dreaded most to the time she looked forward to; there was something special about coming back to her room on the Waverider after an exhausting day to find Ava sitting on the end of her bed beginning to take her her shoes off, or occasionally curled up with a book slipping out of her hand, having fallen asleep whilst waiting for Sara to get back. 

Those were the days she would tuck Ava’s hair back behind her ear and press a gentle kiss to her forehead before changing and slipping into bed beside her, unable to keep her smile off her face when Ava mumbles a sleepy hello and pulled her closer, draping an arm possessively across her waist despite still being half asleep. 

Other evenings she would make her way back to Ava’s apartment and steal an oversized t-shirt to sleep in, slipping into the bathroom and pulling Ava down into a quick kiss hello before getting ready for bed, enjoying having someone else to share her time with outside of the team. She’d learnt to love the quiet moments, the domesticity of it all, the simple comfort of having Ava by her side and knowing that she’d be there no matter what.

Except now it had all come full circle, and the idea of sleeping in an empty bed for the seventh night in a row seemed worse than just turning up on Ava’s doorstep and hoping, with all of her heart, that this relationship was salvageable. (Hoping that maybe, Ava wouldn’t tell her to leave. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to take Ava telling her to go for the second time in a row).

Except Ava didn’t. When she eventually opened the door, freezing in the doorway and then raking her eyes over the t-shirt Sara had changed into on the RV and the sweatpants she’d pulled on after giving up on sleep, not saying a word. She was almost surprised when Ava took a step back, silently inviting her into her (their) apartment. She’d half expected Ava to close the door in her face - she’d deserve it, after the chaos she’d dragged her into last week.

Ava raised an eyebrow.

“I just want to talk,” Sara responded softly, not meeting Ava’s eyes but starting to make her way over to the couch, avoiding the book placed haphazardly down on the cushions and the blanket Ava had clearly been curled up under before she’d opened the door. Her boots were still lying neatly by the couch in a way that used to drive Ava mad, jacket tossed over the back of the couch after a mission a few weeks ago. She’d promised to put it in the closet and Ava had rolled her eyes affectionately, knowing full well it’d be there for at least a couple of days before she got round to it. 

There was a familiarity to it that made Sara’s heart clench, a visible reminder that this could’ve been  _ their _ apartment, if she’d been willing to settle down. 

Ava perched stiffly on the couch beside her, leaving just enough distance between them to twist Sara’s heart even more. She tapped her fingers against her leg and Sara swallowed, reciting the carefully prepared speech she’d planned before she’d made her way here, calm and eloquent and well thought out. “I hate this.” 

Ava’s head snapped up and Sara bit her lip, plan going straight out the window the moment Ava’s eyes met hers, swimming with uncertainty and agreement and a hint of defiance.

“I hate fighting with you,” Sara repeated, picking at a rip in her jeans. “And I never know how to fix things once they’ve started to fall apart, and I’m awful at talking about things, but I was hoping that maybe we could try again - try to work out what went wrong.”

Ava nodded, relaxing slightly, but not enough to put Sara at ease. An awkward silence fell, but Ava filled it before Sara had the chance to. 

“Hank has me on an ‘extended leave’. Did you know that?”

He - what? 

“I thought you took time off?” She asked, confused, and Ava visibly held back a sigh. Oh. Ava hadn’t…. yeah, she should’ve seen that coming. They’d been arguing about Ava’s job, at least partly; she never would’ve voluntarily taken time off after that. 

“Gary said - ”

“Gary’ll believe whatever anyone tells him,” Ava pointed out abruptly, and Sara held back a sigh of her own. 

“I’m sorry,” she attempted, to say, but Ava raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t think - ” 

“You didn’t  _ think. _ That’s it, Sara. You didn’t think - about any of this. You didn’t think about the consequences, about what this would all mean for me, for the rest of the Bureau - even for Nate. You didn’t think about anything other than running headfirst into the fight, and - ”

Sara shook her head, biting her tongue and attempting to let Ava say her piece rather than interrupting with a half-hearted, poorly constructed argument. She never  _ stopped _ thinking. That was the problem, really. She hadn’t been able to turn her brain off since the moment Zari had shown her footage of magical creatures being dragged from their cages and thrown into vans for interrogation, face paler than usual as she’d murmured something about 2042, unaware anyone was listening. 

She hadn’t been able to turn her brain off at night either - except once darkness had fallen it’d stopped being Hank and the Bureau torturing magical creatures, it’d stopped being ARGUS locking them away; she was the one with bloody knuckles and screams echoing in her ears. She was the one ignoring their desperate pleas, pretending she didn’t know the people she was standing over were innocent.

Ava blinked, and Sara closed her eyes for a moment, slowly forcing the tension from her shoulders. “You’re right,” she agreed, hoping her voice sounded more sincere than it did in her head. “I didn’t realise how badly this could end for you. But I  _ did _ think, aves - I just…”

“Did it anyway?” Ava asked bitterly, with an audible undercurrent of undeserved anger. 

(Well, partially deserved.  _ You can’t expect her to know things you don’t tell her _ , Zari had reminded her earlier, and it was fair. To Ava, there was barely any reasoning behind her actions. She  _ should’ve _ supported her.

Zari had caught her wrist on the way out of the room, concern lingering behind her eyes.  _ But don’t expect to know things she hasn’t told you _ , she’d added, and something uneasy had settled in Sara’s stomach, something dark and heavy that she’d wished would go away.) 

Sara shrugged half-heartedly and Ava frowned, expecting a response of some kind, but Sara shook her head instead. “I want to hear your side of this first,” she said softly, wishing she could reach out and take Ava’s hand, hating the distance between them.

Ava held her gaze for a long moment, expression unreadable, before looking away. Sara pretended she didn’t hear the way her voice wavered as she admitted  “I  _ do _ care about you, and about everything that’s going on behind the scenes at work. But I can’t...I can’t rock the boat. I can’t lose this - I don’t know what I’d do without this job. I was  _ made _ for it, Sara. I was programmed to be a perfect agent, I was designed to perform this one task. I’m...it’s who I  _ am _ .”

Oh.

Yeah. Maybe Zari had been right - this went both ways. Neither of them had been honest with each other about why this really mattered.

Sara reached out to take Ava’s hand but Ava moved it away, and god, that stung more than she’d like to admit. She took a shaky breath, forcing everything except Ava from her mind. “It’s not all you are,” she responded firmly, determined to shake this belief from Ava’s mind. “You’re more than that.”

She’d always been more than that.

Ava ran one hand through her hair, visibly frustrated, accidentally knocking an old case file off the coffee table and onto the floor. “I  _ know _ , Sara. I know, but - ” 

“Do you?”

Ava froze, and Sara’s breath caught in her throat, her words hanging in the air between them. Ava’s eyes flickered over her face, unreadable. “Do you?” she repeated, softer this time, but when Ava opened her mouth to respond no words came out, and she picked at the hem of the sweater she was wearing, uncertain. It was strange, seeing Ava like this. She’d always been so sure of herself, so confident and in her element in a smart pantsuit, standing in front of a room full of agents giving them orders, protecting the past from anachronisms and magical creatures alike.

Ava sighed, shrugging slightly, seeming almost defeated in a way that made Sara’s stomach twist. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t  _ known _ this conversation would be hard. She’d seen Ava’s tears before she’d left her office a week ago, she’d seen how much this had upset her. 

(She’d still left her. Alone, about to be reprimanded and possibly fired by Hank.

She’d never been good at sticking around anyway.)

“Yeah,” Ava admitted, still a little too quiet and a little too shaky. “At least, I’m trying to believe it...i’m not there yet. But I don’t know how I can work my way there if I don’t at least have this to hold on to.” She looked up, eyes fixing on Sara’s, far more intense than she’d expected. “You do see that, right? You see why this is important to me. You see why I needed you to back me up, and how much it hurt when you didn’t.”

“I do,” Sara agreed, swallowing the response on the tip of her tongue, determined not to let this conversation spiral like the last one. “But…”

“But  _ what _ ?”

It came out sharper than Ava expected, if the surprised, slightly apologetic expression that flashed across her face was anything to go by - but she continued regardless. “I don’t understand why it was so difficult for you to support me, just this once.”

And there it was.

Sara picked at a small cut on her finger from the last mission they’d gone on. “It’s complicated.”

“Everything’s complicated. But we can’t - ” Ava broke off, running one hand through her hair in frustration. “It’s not going to be  _ less _ complicated if we don’t talk about it. I want to understand - I want to know how we fix this.”

_ We fix this by stopping the Bureau _ , Sara almost interjected, but caught herself before the words slipped out.  _ We stop them from taking magical creatures, make sure no one gets hurt, protect them from whatever Hank’s trying to do to them. _

“You can’t bring down the Bureau,” Ava murmured before she had the chance, sounding exhausted. “And not just because of me - other people work there,  _ good _ people, and we need them to protect the timeline.”

“The magical creatures need protecting too. They’re being  _ tortured _ , Aves. I can’t - ” 

She couldn’t let it happen again. She  _ wouldn’t _ let it happen again, not with the blood already on her hands, the screams of prisoners and targets and Ra’s al Ghul’s men still sometimes playing on loop in her dreams.

“No Sara,  _ listen _ \- ” 

“I  _ am _ listening. I am. Everything you’ve said makes perfect sense, and I wish I could agree with you and support you on this but - “ she paused, breaking eye contact with Ava and looking down at her hands, twisting her fingers together in her lap. Her words caught in her throat when she attempted to continue and she swore under her breath. 

She’d gotten so much better at this over the past few months. She’d been trying so hard to let Ava in rather than push her away the moment things started to fall apart, but right now, she wanted nothing more than to grab a time courier and make her way back to the ship, curling up in her office with a drink and waiting for Zari to come find her with a game controller in hand and a concerned expression lingering behind her eyes.

Or if that failed, the nearest bar would do.

Ava murmured her name and reached out to curl a hand around her wrist, and somehow, the gesture almost brought tears to Sara’s eyes. She’d missed Ava. She’d missed  _ this _ .

“You know I’ve done shit, Aves,” she eventually managed, avoiding Ava’s eyes. “I’m not sure my file has details, but... I’ve been the person on the other side of this, the one who stopped at nothing until I got the information I needed. I know the league and the Bureau aren’t at all similar, but I’ve been the one following orders, the one torturing someone for crimes they didn’t commit without stopping to ask questions. I’ve done things that keep me awake at night, because I had to to survive. Because I didn’t have a choice. But now I  _ do _ and I have the ability to stop this and ...I’m not just going to stand by and let these creatures get tortured. I can’t. Not when we were the ones who put them in these cells in the first place.”

She swallowed, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor until a thumb gently traced across the back of her hand and prompted her to look up, immediately meeting Ava’s eyes. 

She didn’t remember Ava moving closer. She didn’t remember Ava taking her hand either, tangling their fingers together and squeezing just lightly enough to be comforting without making her feel trapped, as if she couldn’t leave. 

And she certainly didn’t remember letting the tears she’d been holding in for an entire week fall, but Ava’s thumb on her cheek was so tender, so caring that maybe, just this once, she didn’t mind. (It wasn’t as if Ava hadn’t already seen her at her worst - she’d been there after Mallus, willing to talk things through and certain that they could fix whatever had gone wrong between them. She’d been there after Amaya left, and when Sara had turned up in her apartment and crawled into her arms after her dad died - but somehow, every time, Sara managed to convince herself that it would be the last. She’d pull it together. She’d be okay now.

It never worked.)

“You never told me that,” Ava murmured softly, and Sara exhaled, looking up towards the ceiling. 

“It’s not something I’m proud of.”

“No, but - ” Ava sighed, squeezing her hand tightly, trailing off halfway through the sentence when she seemed to realise she had no conclusion to make. The corner of Sara’s lips twitched slightly in amusement, and Ava smiled. 

“And it’s not an excuse for fighting with you,” Sara added, grip on Ava’s hand tightening slightly, nodding as if to convince herself. “We should’ve had this conversation the first time around.”

Ava looked down at their joined hands, tracing a light pattern across Sara’s skin. “You’re talking to me now,” she murmured softly, nudging Sara’s shoulder gently with her own. “You came to find me. And I know I missed things - important things that I should’ve noticed - but I know  _ you _ , Sara. I know this isn’t easy.”

Sara murmured an agreement, leaning slightly into Ava’s side, longing to let go of her self control and fall into Ava’s arms, but still holding herself back.

“What do we do now?” Ava eventually asked, and Sara closed her eyes with a hopeless shrug.

“I don’t know.”

She could hear Ava’s little intake of breath at the sudden realisation that for once, she didn’t have a plan. It was unnerving, being this unsure, this unsteady on her feet, this willing to admit that yeah, she  _ did _ need help. But when Ava curled an arm around her shoulders and finally pulled her into a hug, she couldn’t bring herself to care. 

“I don’t know either,” Ava admitted, words hanging in the silence between them until Sara rested her head against her shoulder and she moved to gently card her fingers through her hair. “But we’ll work it out.”

Ava pressed a gentle kiss to Sara’s hairline, lips brushing against her skin for the briefest moment before she pulled away, and Sara smiled against her neck, sinking further into the warmth of Ava’s arms. “Can you stay?” Ava asked softly, and Sara’s heart fluttered in her chest as she nodded, pressing a quick kiss to Ava’s neck.

“I’ll be here for as long as you want me.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on tumblr (@legolasunderstoodthatreference)
> 
> (disclaimer: I cannot for the life of me spell bureau correctly and I'm not sure spellcheck caught it all, pretend you didn't notice)


End file.
